"R J Carpenter" wrote in message
...


I don't think Bonneville has changed since the days when someone I know
managed a station for them in New York City. He said that he was never
asked about religion. Of course he is pretty conservative, and the format
was one that was unlikely to cause heartburn.

Bonneville owns three "stations" here in the DC area:

WGMS - commercial classical
WTOP - straight news, no "talk", no discernable tilt
see their web site www.wtopnews.com
WWZZ - a rock station that may well be watered down "to suit"


I have to differ with you on this one RJ. The Mormon sensibilities have
definitely made their share of appearances on the WWZZ signal over the
years.

Back when WWZZ/WWVZ was a half decent CHR (before CC decided to put Rhythmic
CHR on 99.5 and Bonneville bailed on the format altogether) the were
notoriously touchy with the dump button during the morning show, they edited
songs excessively; etc. One song example that really used to bug me from
the late '90's - "Sexual" by Amber - Bonneville edited the song for airplay
and changed it to "Sensual"; subtle, yet highly annoying. In certain urban
cuts, they would edit out not only the foul language, but also references to
drugs that they (apparently) thought were too overt. This often has the
effect of butchering songs - resulting in long lyrical silences throughout
the cut.

I often wondered - "if they're so offended by the content, why do they spin
these songs?" I guess someone at Bonneville finally agreed - to my
knowledge, there are no CHR's left in the Bonneville stable. Can anyone
think of an example of a CHR still owned by Bonneville? I don't claim to
understand the programming decisions, but I do think that CHR content and
Bonneville corporate sensibilities were often in direct conflict.

Best,

Jeremy Powell